The Dark Side of Green (An Baccaert, Cristiano Navarro, Nicolas Muñoz |2011, 32 min) documents the struggle of the indigenous Guarani-Kalowá in Brazil. They have faced many problems due to sugarcane plantations invading their lands.

Sérgio Sauer is associate professor at the University of Brasilia, researcher at the Center for Agrarian Studies and national rapporteur for Human Rights in Land, Territory and Food. His research is focused on land issues, social agrarian movements and rural communities’ struggles, governmental land policies and land deals, rural development and expansion of agrofuels, and food sovereignty in Brazil.

Ocean grabbing refers to processes or practices that negatively affect populations that depend on water and oceans for their livelihoods, such as small-scale fishing communities. Such processes include for instance laws and policies that determine resource access. We will show a few shorts representing various issues around the theme of ocean grabbing.

Cornelie Quist will share her reflections on these issues, after which the floor is open for discussion. Quist has an academic background in rural sociology and a broad experience as researcher, consultant and social activist in small-scale fisheries, natural resource management and integrated rural development. For more than 20 years she has been co-coordinating the international Women in Fisheries Programme of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF).

Voices of Transition (Nils Aguilar | 2012, 65 min) makes clear that current and impending crises, like soil erosion, climate change and dwindling natural resources, are, in fact, positive challenges. We see how groundbreaking initiatives in France, Cuba and the UK are achieving more local resilience: the ability to withstand shocks.

Leonardo van den Berg will join us tonight to open up the debate with a short presentation. Van den Berg is researcher at ILEIA, centre for learning on sustainable agriculture. ILEIA works towards social justice through the promotion of agroecology and family farming.